OCHA's humanitarian Dashboard

Thanks to iRevolution for this:

The goal of the Dashboard is to ensure evidence-based humanitarian decision making for more needs-based, effective, and timely action. The business world is well-accustomed to dashboards for senior executives in order to provide them with a real-time overview of core business data, alert them of potential problems, and keep operations on-track for desired results.

Stephen Few, a leader in dashboard design defines a dashboard as “a single-screen display of the most important information people need to do a job, presented in a way that allows them to monitor what’s going on in an instant.” Such a single-screen or single-page overview, updated in real time, does not currently exist in the humanitarian world.”

Read more at iRevolution.

Introducing the aid worker's 'All In Diary'

Thanks to the Road to the Horizon for this:

All In Diary, an online resource for humanitarian field workers, aims at improving the quality and appropriateness of relief work. They cover sections on humanitarian principles, disaster preparedness and response, how to start projects, working with communities, managing people.

They just published a PDF version of their "manual", which looks like an excellent introduction to humanitarian work as a whole, and not just a reference guide for aid workers.

Read more on the All in Diary website.

Plan and WVI: Children have a vital role in DRR

The experience of NGOs, including Plan International and World Vision International, confirms that children, who represent 50% of the world’s population, can and do play invaluable roles in planning and implementing disaster risk reduction (DRR) and climate change adaptation activities. In spite of this evidence, children are, by and large, excluded from the activities that contribute to building the resilience of their local communities. Children must be engaged as a vital part of the civil society mechanism that monitors HFA progress, which the Views from the Frontline survey has sought to establish.

Read more on Reliefweb.

Annual Disaster Statistical Review 2008: The Numbers and Trends

Key points:

• More than 235 000 people were killed, 214 million people were affected and economic costs were over 190 billion US$.
• In 2008, 354 natural disasters were recorded in the EM-DAT database, which is less than the 2000-2007 yearly average number of 397 but thanks to Cyclone Nargis and the Sichuan earthquake the death toll was three times higher than the annual average
• Asia remained the most affected continent with nine of the top 10 countries with the highest number of disaster-related deaths
• As countries move up the development ladder, their economic vulnerability tends to increase. These countries need to invest more in disaster risk reduction measures if they want to better protect development gains.

Read more on Reliefweb.

ALNAP: Responding to Urban Disasters: Learning from previous relief and recovery operations

The latest ALNAP/Provention lessons paper 'Responding to Urban Disasters: Learning from previous relief and recovery operations' is now available. Download the report as a pdf from the ALNAP website.

ALNAP say:

We have written this paper in response to a common perception in both the humanitarian and disaster risk communities that there is a lack of guidance on disaster response in urban environments - especially if compared with the experiences and materials available on response in rural settings. I hope this paper begins to help fill this gap.

Global dashboard on the food and fuel price crisis: 'here comes trouble...'

Last year Global Dashboard wrote that

'As soon as we’re out of the downturn and demand starts going up again, we’ll discover that there’s been no shift in the underlying supply fundamentals - and hence that the stagflation drivers we were all worrying about until the credit crunch really began in earnest are just waiting where we left them.'

On the 15th June, they pointed out that oil prices have begun to recover - read more on the website.

ODI's six messages on climate change

At the beginning of June ODI hosted the last in its series of Climate Change and Development meetings. Since January, 11 meetings have featured top scientists and thinkers, government ministers, international diplomats, NGO leaders, and policy shapers. They have discussed a wide range of topics: from the science of climate change, through sectoral issues, to policy frameworks and both radical and routine techniques for mitigation to prevent climate change, and adaptation to its realities.

Six key messages have emerged from the series:

1. Climate change is big, urgent and happening right now.
2. Uncertainty about future carbon emissions and their impact makes it vital to focus on specific contexts
3. Middle income countries must play their part in mitigation
4. Climate change is going to cost a lot, and innovative finance is crucial
5. We need to be clear about our expectations for Copenhagen
6. Lessons about politics and policy-making on climate change are critical

Read more on the ODI blog.

Care, UN and Columbia University: Climate change forces new migration response

Climate change will force millions of people to leave their homes to flee rising seas and drought over the coming decades, requiring a new plan for mass migration, said a report published on Wednesday. Funds were needed to help migrants escape natural disasters which will worsen, threatening political stability, said the report published by the U.N. University, CARE International and Columbia University.

"Environmentally induced migration and displacement has the potential to become an unprecedented phenomenon -- both in terms of scale and scope," the study said. "In coming decades, climate change will motivate or force millions of people to leave their homes in search of viable livelihoods and safety."

The report said that the science of climate change was too new to forecast exact projected numbers of migrants, but it cited an International Organisation for Migration estimate of 200 million environmentally induced migrants by 2050.

Wednesday's study highlighted especially vulnerable regions of the world including: island states such as Tuvalu and the Maldives, dry areas such as Africa's Sahel and in Mexico, and delta regions in Bangladesh, Vietnam, and Egypt. "In the densely populated Ganges, Mekong, and Nile River deltas, a sea level rise of 1 metre could affect 23.5 million people and reduce the land currently under intensive agriculture by at least 1.5 million hectares," it said.

Read more on more on the Reuters website

IRIN Radio: English-language audio interviews on hot humanitarian issues

See IRIN's website for 10 mins or less audio files on:
Security hampering the aid effort in Somalia (including the ICRC HoD)
Assessment and analysis
Food security assessment in Somalia
Data analysis approaches

...more to come no doubt. Thanks to @paulcurrion.

Reuters: Disaster-prone Bangladesh trials cell phone alerts

Tens of thousands of mobile users in Bangladesh's flood and cyclone-prone areas will now receive advance warning of an impending natural disaster through an alert on their cell phones, a government official says.

Bangladesh -- one of the world's most densely populated countries -- is highly vulnerable to natural disasters, including cyclones, storm surges, droughts, floods and earthquakes, which often affect millions of people.

In a bid to minimize loss of life and damage to property, Bangladeshi authorities have signed an agreement with two mobile operators in the country to provide disaster early warning alerts to subscribers.

Grameenphone and state-owned Teletalk will send instant messages to their subscribers in two of the most vulnerable areas -- flood-prone north-central Shirajganj district and cyclone-prone Cox's Bazar district on the coast.

Read more on Reuters.

WHO: Chronic diseases reach “epidemic” proportions

Chronic diseases—especially cancer, diabetes, and chronic respiratory and heart diseases – kill twice as many people worldwide every year than do infectious diseases HIV, malaria and tuberculosis, combined. But despite their stealth ascent to epidemic proportions – mostly in poor countries, according to World Health Organization (WHO) – chronic diseases receive scant donor and government attention.

Read more on IRIN.

UN-ISDR: 2009 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction: Risk and Poverty in a Changing Climate

The Report is the first biennial global assessment of disaster risk
reduction prepared in the context of the International Strategy for
Disaster Reduction (ISDR). The ISDR, launched in 2000, provides a
framework to coordinate actions to address disaster risks at the local,
national, regional and international levels. The Hyogo Framework for
Action for Action 2005-2015 (HFA), endorsed by 168 UN member states at
the World Conference on Disaster Reduction in Kobe, Japan in 2005,
urges all countries to make major efforts to reduce their disaster risk
by 2015.  

Download the report from Reliefweb.